Social entrepreneurship

Jules Cornet

Yelena Abello

Maxime Fagot

Lea Mercadier

Social entrepreneurship

Site : https://www.impossiblefoods.com/

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1. The name of the organisation, the main people involved and the history of the organisation

Impossible Foods is a company that develops meat and cheese substitutes made entirely from plants. Based in Redwood City, California, the company aims to provide people with the taste and nutritional benefits of animal-derived foods without the negative health and environmental aspects of raising.

The company's flagship product, the “Impossible Burger”, was launched in July 2016, after several years of research and development.

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In 2009, Patrick O. Brown, professor of biochemistry at Stanford University, decided to dedicate an 18-month sabbatical to study ways to eliminate the intensive breeding which he considers one of the most serious. environmental problems. With other academics, Brown co-led a 2010 conference in Washington D.C. titled “The Role of Animal Agriculture in a Sustainable 21st Century Global Food System”. However, faced with the low impact of this conference, he decides that the best way to reduce animal husbandry would be to offer a competitive product to the market.

In 2011, Patrick Brown co-founded Impossible Foods with chef Tal Ronnen and cheese maker Monte Casino. The company looked at animal products at the molecular level, then selected proteins and nutrients from vegetables, seeds and grains to recreate the taste of meat and dairy.

Impossible Foods decides to focus on beef used in burgers and launches its first meat substitute: the Impossible Burger, in July 2016. On January 7, 2019, a new version of the product was released.

In 2014, Impossible Foods raised between $ 75 million and $ 108 million from investors, including Google Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Viking Global Investors, UBS, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, Horizons Ventures and Bill Gates. In April 2018, an additional $ 114 million was received, mainly from Singaporean investors Temasek Holdings and Hong Kong Sailing Capital, bringing the total to 372 million. In May 2019, the company raised an additional $ 300 million. It is then evaluated at 2 billion.

The company's flagship product, “Impossible Burger”, was launched in July 2016, after several years of research and development.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impossible_Foods

2. The product the organisation provides 

After much effort, Impossible Foods released its first product, the Impossible Burger. If the firm is to be believed, the ground beef is in every way similar to beef: taste, texture, smell, and even the noise of the grill during cooking.

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To make their hamburger, Impossible Foods applies the "reverse engineering" technique to the meat. In his Californian laboratory, scientists analyze meat down to the molecular level. They are studying which components are responsible for taste, texture, color, and other characteristics. For each of these elements, they seek in the plant world an equivalent capable of playing the same role. For example, coconut oil replaces fat, potato protein provides texture, and wheat protein provides strength when chewing.

The central ingredient in the preparation, which gives it many of its properties, is heme. It was developed and patented by Patrick O'Reilly Brown, the CEO and founder of Impossible Foods. Heme is a molecular structure found in leghemoglobin, a molecule made by soybeans. Evolutionarily, leghemoglobin is related to animal myoglobin, found in muscle, and hemoglobin in blood. It is used to regulate the supply of oxygen to cells. Leghemoglobin gives the Impossible Burger the look, smell when cooked and flavor of beef.

"We are the first to discover that heme, when in contact with the other ingredients, recreates all of the sensations associated with meat," continues Holz-Schietinger. "It is one of the essential building blocks of living organisms. We extract it from soybean roots and produce it on a large scale through a fermentation process comparable to that of beer."

Through a process of isolating the soybean gene corresponding to the hemoprotein, the researchers were able to select and extract the proteins and nutrients from vegetables, seeds or even cereals. Mixed with yeast, the result was similar, as unbelievable as it may seem, to fake blood and a single vat of hemoglobin allows the manufacture of more than 20,000 steak burgers.

Without the heme, the Impossible Burger couldn't exist anyway. The protein is packed with iron, including astronomical amounts of hemoglobin, which is the source of the color of blood and red meat.

https://www.club-sandwich.net/articles/impossible-burger-le-defi-d-un-hamburger-sans-viande-251.php

https://theconversation.com/la-leghemoglobine-cet-ingredient-qui-fait-passer-le-steak-vegetal-pour-de-la-viande-rouge-116240

https://www.7detable.com/article/environnement/impossible-food-un-vrai-burger-un-faux-steak-mais-un-gout-saignant/2592

3. Why do they provide this product, what need or problem does it serve ?

The consequences of livestock farming

Today, 75% of the world's agricultural land is used to raise livestock - that is, to feed animals that will later be used to feed us. Our carnivorous lifestyle, reserved for a privileged few, is putting such pressure on our planet that it is destabilising ecosystems. Destruction of biodiversity and deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, pollution of waterways, control by multinationals to the detriment of small farmers, but also often animal cruelty and harmful impacts on human health... Our unbridled consumption of meat and dairy products from industrial livestock farming has harmful effects in many ways.

One of the main problems associated with livestock farming is deforestation. In many countries, livestock farming contributes to deforestation, partly because of the lack of space. Raising animals requires a lot of space, and unfortunately this space is found by cutting down trees. In the Brazilian Amazon, for example, 63% of deforestation is used for livestock. This is catastrophic when you consider that the Amazon rainforest is one of the main reserves of oxygen on Earth. Moreover, deforestation is also accelerated by the fact that it is necessary to make room for planting soya, in particular to feed livestock.

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